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Historical Title: Remembering American Wars: 'Politically Correct' Myths of Military Service M uch of what Americans believe about the causes of war, national conflicts, and wartime casualties, is shaped by popular myths. The entertainment industry, mass media and mass-market publishers feed Americans a continual psychosomatic diet of fictionalized propaganda by directors such as Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone that regularly passes as fact. Americans have been a profoundly a historical and anti-intellectual people with a deep distrust of those who remember anything more than what was on television, on the movie screen or a sports score. Yet, we continue to have an abiding conviction that we are the chosen people of the modern age and everybody wants to be just like us. The consequences of World War II from which we emerged relatively unscathed and as a superpower, which we did not merit, have largely been played out. Many Americans persist in believing that the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor was a treachery unequalled in the annals of mankind. Yet when China, Russia, France, Great Britain and the United States convened to form the United Nations shortly after World War II, their great common bond was being attacked without warning by Japan within the preceding half century. From the sinking of the Chinese troop ship, Kow Shing, in 18941 to December 7, 1941, the knights of Bushido had not bothered to declare war before assaulting the five nations forming the Security Council of the United Nations. The Japanese sneak attack at Port Arthur against Russia in 1904 brought respectful compliments from American cultural icons such as Teddy Roosevelt and the New York Times. On February 13, 1904 the New York Times berated the Czar of Russia: "the point that the Japanese violated international law in going to war without a formal declaration would be of no importance if the Czar had not dignified it in raising it to the Russian people" and added "the practice of initiating war by formal declaration has gone out".2 Rough Rider Teddy wrote his son on how pleased he was by Japan's stunning duplicity at Port Arthur.3 His sense of fair play was not affronted. While December 7, 1941 is still remembered as a day of infamy in America, no historical sense exists among most Americans that other nations have suffered similar faithless hostility. We continue to reject the lessons of history, not only our own, but especially other's, as a guide to human interaction. Americans have preferred to rely on manifest nobility and being blessed by a kindly Providence to divine human actions. For most of human history the balance of world power has resided in the Orient, most specifically China. Perceptive observers have noted a swing back to Asia and wonder why Americans do not comment on it. In their most debilitated state the Chinese have disputed the American claim of manifest destiny. Americans have insulted the Chinese repeatedly and never realized it. In 1995 when Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama visited Peking he was met by an accusation in the People's Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese government, that 35 million Chinese died due to Japanese depravity.4 Within days the New York Times had an article written by their Tokyo correspondent, Pulitzer Prize winner and current op-ed columnist, Nicholas Kristof, that credited only 10 million Chinese dying due to Japanese butchery.5 As was said in Vietnam, Mr. Kristof "disappeared" 25 million people. Who would want to quibble over dead Chinese? It must be noted this number was over four times the alleged number of Jews that were killed by the Nazis, which occurred during the same memorialized period as the Holocaust, to the exclusion of other atrocities and by most of the rest of the world as World War II. To challenge the death of one Jew is to be labeled an anti-Semite unworthy of debate, yet not a single letter was published concerning the missing 25 million. When it comes wartime atrocities, the New York Times considers some victims more important than others. In May 1938, six months after the Nanking massacre, when the Japanese slaughtered 300,000 Chinese, Mao Tse Tung told Evans Carlson of the United States Marines that the U.S. had provided Japan with over half of the war materials she had purchased abroad. This news stunned Carlson, and he had to reconsider much of the bombast he had uttered in support of American policy. Mao explained to Carlson that people were sometimes so blinded by the glitter of gold that they fail to see their country or themselves accurately. 6 As a means of comparison the number of Chinese killed at Nanking was three times the number of American combat dead in what we consider 45 months of hard fighting in the Pacific in World War II. On November 25, 1941, FDR, Secretaries Hull, Knox and Stimson, General Marshall, and Admiral Stark agonized over maneuvering the Japanese into firing the first shot without too much danger to Americans. Some 4 days previous, Secretary of War Henry Stimson brusquely observed in his diary that the Japanese had killed some 700 Chinese with poison gas at Ichang. Stimson manifested no concern for their lives, but expressed anxiety over Americans in the Philippines.7 The recent movie Pearl Harbor sharply illustrated American hypocrisy and economic ethics. Endings and scenes have been modified so as not to offend Japanese sensibilities or potential profits from Japan. Chinese psychic needs were forgotten or never considered. The Doolittle Raid is presented as mighty America's answer to upstart Japan. In the days preceding the raid, Chiang Kai Shek had received reports the Japanese were massing troops at Hangchow in preparation for a march against Chuchow, the intended landing spot for Doolittle's planes. Chiang objected to the use of the Chuchow airfield as he felt using Chuchow would provoke Japanese barbarity. FDR placed American domestic considerations above Chinese lives and ordered the bombing. After the Doolittle raid, the Japanese commander was given orders to prevent the bombing of the Japanese homeland by use of bases in China. The Japanese dispatched troops to the area and started to destroy all military targets. Murder, rape, and plunder became the every day conduct of the attacking Japanese forces. After the initial reports, Chiang fired off a bitter cable to Washington: Japanese troops attacked the coastal areas of China where many of the American flyers had landed. These Japanese troops slaughtered every man, woman and child in those areas - let me repeat - these Japanese troops slaughtered every man, woman and child in those areas, reproducing on a wholesale scale the horrors which the world had seen at Lidice, but about which the people have been uninformed in these instances. Mao's reaction would have been much the same as Chiang's. Chiang did not exaggerate. The American General Claire Chennault in his memoirs outlined the Japanese revenge as their moving troops two hundred miles into east China and occupying twenty thousand square miles of Chinese territory. Entire villages were burned and all inhabitants shot. Chennault estimated the number of Chinese soldiers and civilians dead at a quarter million.8 Americans have managed to forget our innocent awkward attempts to civilize and modernize the Chinese. In 1847, after reading a missionary tract on Christian religion a Chinese inquisitor, Hung Hsiu-chuan presented himself to Issachar Roberts of Sumner County, Tennessee for a two-month course of intensive Bible study in Canton, China.9 Two months would not have been sufficient for firebrands like Reverend Roberts to impart more than a superficial understanding of the Christian religion, but what Hung did learn proved to have immense consequences. The moral rigidity of the Ten Commandments and wrathful retribution of the Old Testament overwhelmed any appeal the existing Confucian ethic had for him. Not only did Hung become a believer, but came to have visions and to think of himself as the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Convinced of his righteousness, Hung began to destroy the idols of other religions, most notably the Confucian ancestor tablets. The earthly effect was to lead Hung into rebellion against the Manchu dynasty so a new social order could be created. What followed was one of the great revolutionary movements in the history of the world. The Taiping Rebellion has been generally dated from 1851 to 1864. The whole of central China and large parts of the North and South, altogether an area with more than a hundred million inhabitants, were affected. A generally accepted figure for the number of dead caused by the fighting was twenty million. This war lasted three times as long as the American Civil War and in China more than thirty times as many died. When accompanying President Nixon to Peking, James Reston of the New York Times was aghast when he found that Chou En Lai harbored ill feelings towards the Japanese. Chou replied that China had suffered greatly from the Japanese while in comparison to both World Wars, the United States had suffered relatively little and benefited greatly. This response caused Reston, the most influential newspaperman of his generation, to examine himself. His thoughts expounded to Eric Sevareid, onetime heavyweight commentator at CBS, revealed much of American character, historical perspective and primitive insolence. Reston proudly noted Americans had as a defining quality 60;no memory,61; and this failure proved we were a forward-looking people.10 The Chinese have never forgotten these insults, and one must assume one day they will make sure the rest of the world does not either. This most certainly must include the U.S. The failure of Americans to appreciate history, most notably that of foreign countries, has long been a national disgrace. To understand why we do not value history we must look within ourselves. Remembering the Civil War The seminal event in American history has been the Civil War. Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot said the real revolution in the United States was not what the history books referred to as the Revolutionary War, but a consequence of the Civil War after which arose a plutocratic elite.11 Three tribes that greatly determine present-day popular American culture, Ivy League WASP's, American blacks and Jews, evaded military service in that most crucial of American wars and have created a corrosive chimera to conceal their deceits and cowardice. As a nation, we have come to believe the necessary lies of the present-day ruling class and cultural standard bearers. The archetype of the American tycoon of the latter part of the 19th and early 20th century was John Pierpont Morgan. As recently as 1989 a reader wrote a letter to American Heritage magazine asking where the great Morgan was during the years of the Civil War and if Morgan hired a substitute to go to war in his place.12 Then the curious correspondent surmised that the then popular cliché of the Civil War as "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight" was quite true. The answer from this magazine that presents itself as concerned for the serious amateur was that they believed Morgan hired a substitute rather than serve in the army. Elaborating on the apologia, the magazine reminded readers there was just too much money to be made on Wall Street for poor Morgan to think of anything else, and in an appeal to the patriotic ideals lurking within every American, the magazine reminded the inquiring reader of the preservation of the Union, "the last, best hope on earth", and the abolition of the abomination of slavery. As for the rich who stayed home to make money, American Heritage wondered if forever more they did not hold their manhood cheap. With no obvious malice the reply finished, 60;Along with the money, I suspect Morgan and thousands of others paid a quiet, inward, lifelong price.61; That the designated replier from American Heritage managed to change his answer 53; from a tentative belief in Morgan's hiring of a substitute to an acknowledgment of his paying a stand-in 53; within two paragraphs, illustrated how the power of money warps the integrity of language when an unpleasant fact has to be faced. This bare minimal answer bordered on deliberate deceit and pandered to the present day power of the House of Morgan. Morgan's nefarious dealings during the Civil War have been a matter of general public record since 1908 when August Myer's The History of Great American Fortunes was published.13 Morgan knowingly profited enormously from the sale of defective rifles to the Union Army. This transaction in legalistic American terms was a deliberate piece of chicanery that only just stopped short of being illegal and may still bring admiring prose at both the Harvard legal and business schools. His contemporaries fighting and dying may only heighten the praise as proof of his foresight. The divinity school at Harvard might not find his behavior and moral code worthy of condemnation either. After the battle of Gettysburg when Morgan was drafted, he did arrange to pay a substitute $300 so that he need not expose himself to danger14. When done on such a large scale, these briberies contributed greatly to the draft riots of 1863 when the immigrant and other lower classes reacted violently against what they perceived as an unfair quota system. The draft riots disturbed the affluent. Forty years later a history of Columbia University described the draft riot as a "formidable uprising of the unpatriotic, ignorant and vicious classes in the city."15 The poet Ezra Pound was not impressed by Morgan's evasions, but thought they rather helped him become the great Mahatma of Wall Street where he was rather typical of the material by which economic and human history of the United States had been made.16 An admiring biography of the Mellons, chronicling their rise to become America's richest family, made it quite clear as to what was uppermost in Judge Mellon's mind during the Civil War years.17 His son James had written the war was a source of great wealth to speculators who were continually getting richer and who did not care when war closed as the longer it lasted the better it would be for them. His elder son T.A. spoke ecstatically about the wealth to be made in tobacco speculations. In full recognition that his attitude was not the patriotic one, young T.A. let his actions be modeled after those in Lincoln's cabinet and thought "the more a person can get the better." The Judge was thrilled his boy was thinking the right way and sent him a letter of congratulations as the boy's views coincided with his own. The Judge added, "There is no doubt that in a general shipwreck the best way to save one's self is to keep afloat." His son James weakened and asked permission to enlist, but the Judge's concept of patriotism did not require enlisting in any army. The Judge remembered, with approval, how his own Uncle Thomas had evaded the British draft in his escaping North Ireland by dressing as a woman. His biographer, vowed the Judge in his memoirs, wrote his matured and tempered view on the subject: There may be occasions justifying war and making it the duty of every citizen to engage in it, but in the present state of civilization such occasions can seldom occur, and there is always a disproportionately large class of men fitted by nature for a service which requires so little brain work as that of the common soldier, and who are more valuable to their country and themselves as soldiers at such a time than in any other capacity. It is a mistake to suppose it the duty of every man to enlist when his country needs soldiers... If a man is wise, and can perform the duties of private life with credit to himself and improve his conditions at home, he will avoid the folly of soldiering.... a man whose life is of much value to himself, or his family should stay at home. He added: thousands of poor, worthless fellows fit for soldiering, but fit for nothing else, whose duty is to go. . . In time you will come to understand and believe that a man may be patriotic without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of other lives less valuable or others ready to serve for the love of serving. Could the father of Dan Quayle have said it any better? The patriarch of the Taft family of Ohio politics was writing friends that he was ready to throw Lincoln and his cabinet into the Potomac and cudgel his generals as cowards and traitors.18 He was beside himself for the failure of the administration to come to grips with the slavery issue. But Taft's mood changed swiftly after the Battle of Antietam when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and he spoke with renewed enthusiasm for emancipation at patriotic rallies around Cincinnati. With two sons, one born in 1843 and one born in 1845, one might have had a small hope that these children would have been sufficiently motivated to enlist for the sake of their father's fervent beliefs. But they did not. The great battle of Chattanooga was raging in 1863 when the younger turned 18, but the younger had listened to his father's admonition: "there is no place like college to teach the value of each particular moment". He hustled off to Yale. What bullets crashing around his head, or smashing into his body could have taught the lad about appreciating other tranquil moments was not considered appropriate for the offspring of Taft, the patriarch, but he certainly was not shy in urging the children of others not so worthy to have the experience. Harvard at War An interesting line of inquiry has been to try to determine the extent of the war's popularity at Harvard even then a citadel of non-conformist rectitude for the New England conscience. Writing in The New England Magazine of March, 1891, Nathan Appleton, who a quarter of a century after the conflict still identified himself by his wartime rank of Captain, described the effect of the war on the college.19 As a member of the class of 1863, Appleton was attending classes during some of the worst of the early fighting, and he told the reader that the proclamation abolishing slavery by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, assured the outcome of the war before it was finished in the field. The four Southern students in his class at Harvard dropped out in 1861, and one was killed shortly thereafter. While at Harvard Appleton was thrilled to see waving flags. His first night of guard duty at the nearby arsenal gave him a sense of accomplishment and pride, and Appleton regarded this the most important military episode in Harvard's military life. What was mildly surprising and amusing was the assertion by Appleton that prior to the war the most popular song in Boston musical theaters was Dixie, the anthem of the South. His greatest praise was reserved for Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commanding officer of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. Shaw was lauded for leading his black troops at Fort Wagner. Whatever incompetence Shaw may have displayed in tactics, which led to the awful slaughter of his troops, was excused by the glory of the greater victory of showing that men of color could fight, and if need be, die for their freedom and country. Appleton thought Shaw earned the greatest sepulchre of any soldier of the century. Colonel Shaw by himself has served as repository for many of the bravely manifested ideals of the Harvard men. He was the sole subject of a laudatory article in the February, 1890 issue of New England Magazine where it was admitted while he matriculated at Harvard, he never graduated as he left to take a clerkship in a mercantile house in New York.20 As a boy Master Robert promised his father's colored butler that after he grew up, Master Robert would fight for the butler's race. If the writer of the article of over 100 years ago is to be believed, the stern prayer for battle was ever on his lips and in his letters. His regiment, the 54th of Massachusetts, was allotted the post of honor (to use the florid language of the time) for the assault on Fort Wagner. After a charge of admittedly brave men, the sheer amateurishness and incompetence of the 54th manifested itself. Shaw and many of his black troops died. That Shaw and his troops may have been better served if a more thoughtful and professional attack had been attempted, never seemed to bother those who wrote about the martial glory of the 54th; nor, have those in Hollywood who made the film Glory about this charge cared to dwell on the ineptitude involved. Professor McPherson of Princeton professed that Glory was the most powerful movie ever made of the Civil War and provided a cold dose of realism over romantic views of the Confederacy.21 The WASP hierarchy escaped the travails of the Civil War. They cowered in the campuses of Harvard and Yale. At the onset of the war, the eleven seceding states had 1,060,000 white men between the ages of 15 and 40 while the rest of the country had 4,560,000 white men using the 1860 census figures. After adjusting for southern sympathies in border states, the Confederacy had a "military age" pool of some 1,275,000 men to draw from while the Union had 4,345,000 white men plus the black potential to draw on.22 These men would age to 20 and 45 during the war and a guess would be that they would be more than 95% of the casualties. Exact numbers are not important for the following calculations, but a sense of proportion is. From start to finish, an estimated 900,000 men served in the Confederate Army and about 2,000,000 white men served in Union forces along with 200,000 blacks. 23 Confederacy losses were estimated at 280,000 white men. The South lost men at the rate of over 20 men per 100 from their pool. The North lost over 320,000 white men, or 7.35 men per 100 from their pool. As a nation the U.S. lost about 600,000 white men from a military aged pool of 5,620,000, or more than 10.5 per 100. In the general population the loss of almost 600,000 over a white population approaching 28,000,000 was 2.1 per 100 of the general white population. For blacks who were prohibited from fighting for much of the war their loss of 33,000 over a general population of 4,000,000 was 0.8 per 100 of their total population. When applied to their military aged population of almost 900,000 the loss was about 3.7 per 100, roughly one-third the loss of whites. For undergraduate Harvard classes restricted to the Academic Department between 1841 and 1867 who were roughly between the ages 16 and 41 when war began and 20 and 45 when it ended, over 550 would serve and 91 would die in the service of the Union.24 (This number included those who died while on Christian missions and with the Sanitary Commission.) Dead from the South were not considered important enough to count in 1866 when Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson compiled the below numbers for all classes. All Harvard Classes Total Enlistments Died in Service Academic Department-Grads 475 73 -Non-Grads 114 22 Total (Undergraduate) 589 95 Professional Schools 349 22 Total 938 117* *(Union Only) The student numbers for the undergraduate classes between 1841 and 1867 were almost 2300 graduates and 700 non-graduates, to include the illustrious Shaw, who was awarded an honorary posthumous degree in 1873. Professor McPherson referred to Shaw as an alumnus of Harvard rather than a dropout.25 If their student population approximated that of Yale, much less than 10% came from the South. Nathan Appleton's class of 1863 had 121 graduates and 30 non-graduates with only four from the South.26 These numbers of about 2800 men from the North would give the contribution of the Harvard men to the Union cause in the most vicious and important war in our history such that about 20% of eligible men would serve while 3.3% would die for the Union cause. Given that Harvard did not graduate a black until after the Civil War, the Harvard dead were among the 320,000 white deaths. About 46% of eligible Northern men would serve. In both cases the Harvard contribution to the war effort was not one-half of their contemporaries in the North. If more detailed analysis were undertaken by restricting the examined men to younger age groups, the betting would be that the Harvard contribution would be seen to be less, possibly much less than their contemporaries. Care should be given to the estimate of 4 million plus eligible men, as many probably were immigrants ignorant of the conditions of war. The slackers at Harvard were not. For the 300th anniversary of the founding of Harvard in 1936 historian Samuel Eliot Morison summarized the contribution to the Civil War in less than 3 pages. Professor Morison called the students who did guard duty at the arsenal "intrepid defenders" who drilled in a gymnasium under Professor Charles W. Eliot. Harvard had a "cool attitude" towards the war. According to Professor Morison no popular outcry for students to take up arms arose. Draftees who hired a substitute were not despised. Those at Harvard, most certainly to include Morison, did not appear to have conversed with lower white classes such as the immigrant Irish who had contrary opinions. With no condemnation he noted President Lincoln hiding his son at Harvard and then giving him a safe staff appointment. Writing over 70 years after the war ended Morison gave figures for Harvard's sons participation in the below table:27 Total Enlistments Killed or died Percent United States Forces, 1861-65 1311 138 10.5 Confederate Forces, 1861-65 257 64 25.0 What Morison did was to inflate the number of fatalities by adding the number of dead killed from the graduate schools and, somehow after 70 years, find those who had died in that conflict but were not recognized before. To recognize deaths years after the war and attribute the deaths to the war could be done for others who served in that war. The truly malicious part was in manipulating the percentage who had died. His numbers deliberately concealed the abject cowardice of the men of Harvard during that conflict. No feeling for lack of martial courage or sense of duty by the scholars of America's most prestigious university could be gleaned from reading those contrived dishonest figures. Excepting Southerners, the Harvard men of the North were lacking spectacularly in courage and sense of duty. Yale in the Civil War The figures for Yale were even more nauseating. For the classes between 1841 and 1867 the students numbered over 4200. Yale had 84 die in service to the Union and 48 die in service to the Confederacy with additional deaths of one each attributed in service to the Christian Commission and Sanitary Commission.28 About 3% of those classes from Yale died in the war. For Yale classes from 1841 to 1861 there was a sectional breakdown for students:29 South North Total Serving 166 521 687 Non-Serving 95 2477 2572 Sub-Total 261 2988 3259 Dead 43 59 102 For the classes between 1862 and 1867 there was no sectional breakdown other than deaths:30 Dead 5 25 30 Total Students 984 For Yale only about 2% of their classes would die for the North and only about 17% would serve in uniform. Both rates were not only well below the response of their contemporaries, but even below the slackers at Harvard. The Yalie of the South served at about a 64% rate and died at a rate of about 16%, both substantially less than his neighbors, but much higher than the contribution by his northern classmates. Compared to the country as a whole, the men of Harvard died at much less than one-half the rate of their contemporaries. Those stalwart patriots of Yale died at less than one-third the frequency of their countrymen. Neither institution has expressed regret or shame over their cowardice. The tome Yale in The Civil War was published in 1932 to note the contribution of their kind to that conflict. Ruefully admitted was the fact that most of their students had remained decidedly indifferent or lukewarm and chose to be spectators to that conflict. "In a civil war, for obvious reasons, the number of pacifists must always be large." In fact after the appalling losses of the Wilderness Campaign in 1864 student patriotism reached its lowest ebb. No more swords would be presented to students leaving college to enlist. Yale Literary Magazine would take no further notice of the war. They would make no mention of those who would rally to the colors, or to any event of the war. The gloom of the campus scarred the students for the rest of their lives. Little consideration was expended on those who did the fighting. The students did mobilize when confronted with an ancient enemy, the "laboring classes." The draft riots of 1863 in New York City stimulated enlistment. When the length of enlistment was changed to 90 days rather than 30, only 33 of the very finest of Yale volunteered. The desired number was 500. The terms of service were light. For 3 hours, from 4 to 7, they were to drill. Their patriotic service was to be limited only to quelling disturbances in Connecticut. A great source for this book was Mr. Eugene Smith of the class of 1859 who had been briefly expelled for participation in the death of a fireman. This youthful indiscretion did not hinder his receiving the valedictory of his class. The author failed to comment upon Mr. Smith's absence from the Civil War. Men of Yale obviously had their own code of what was really important.31 Some highbrows will noted that the disinclination to enlist was not limited to those of the North as a considerable number of Southerners likewise did not enlist.32 As the above table shows, the student from the Confederacy at Yale, while not meeting the standards of his neighbors, was considerably braver than his northern classmate. In presiding at the commemorative celebration in 1865, William Evarts averred that one-quarter of Yale men of military age had served in the army of the North and proudly asked: "Who has done better than this? Who can say any class of my patriotic countrymen has done better than the students at Yale?"33 Those who would say the Yalies shirked their duty have not been given a forum. On June 21, 1865, the Senior Class at Yale held their valedictory. Like the Harvard ceremony, a dreadful poem was read, and the war featured prominently in the wretched prose. In the oration the convening class was remembered at the onset of war with the insult to the flag at Fort Sumter and the disastrous conflict at Bull Run.34 The orator admitted as to how those at Yale had become accustomed, and rightly so, to think of themselves as a privileged class among men.35 After congratulating his classmates on their perseverance and character, those who did sacrifice in war were remembered as absent faces. Thompson with unequalled patriotism had left the delights of a Christian home, endeared friends and classmates to assume soldier's garb. Alas, his frail frame could not endure, and he became a Christian martyr to a holy cause. The one absent comrade most fondly remembered was Corporal Alling. Scholarly, retiring and a conscientious patriot, Alling answered his country's call. In a disastrous charge at Fredericksburg, he fell among the foremost and bravest. On that auspicious graduation day his classmates recalled Alling as sleeping the long sleep in an unmarked soldier's grave. Alling carried the colors for all his classmates.36 Yale in the Civil War contrasted the response of Yale men to the Civil War to World War I. World War I had clear clean-cut issues that caused most of the student body to volunteer. No figures were cited. This Yale chauvinist asserted the unanimous and enthusiastic response by Yale undergraduates to the call of their country in World War I had proven they had learned the most important duty of citizenship 53; that of unhesitatingly coming to the support of their country in time of need. That this virtue should never lapse was the ardent hope of every older alumnus.37 This claptrap has passed for proof of courage and patriotism for years among WASPs of moneyed birth. A cynic would notice that for the Civil War in America some 20 persons per thousand in the general population died and for the Great War about one per thousand died. That the Civil War was about twenty times more dangerous did not cause any comment for those who wrote that book. Morison in writing about Harvard made much the same claim for his fellows. James McPherson, while writing in 1996, asserted appropriations by city councils and draft insurance societies allowed men who did not want to go to war to pay commutation fees. Professor McPherson baldly claimed this allowed poor men to buy their way out of the draft almost as readily as rich men.38 These avowals are needed by McPherson and his ilk to maintain moral supremacy and legitimacy for their caste. With guns blazing in Europe in 1915, and after a half century of contemplation, Yale dedicated a memorial to the fallen of the Civil War. Heartfelt sentiments of the alumni surfaced in the following poem: No more shall the war cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red: They banish our anger forever, When they laurel the graves of our dead! Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day: Love and tears for the blue; Tears and love for the gray.39 For those who doubt the benefits of an Ivy League education no better proof could be given than the tin ear and palsied hand of the men of Yale. A urine-soaked sot confined to a Galway shebeen would have written better verse with some editing substituting blue and an occasional gray where he would write green. Poor Alling under the sod and dew was not recalled with love and tears nor tears and love. He had been forgotten. Scholars, lawyers, and professional quibblers may challenge certain numbers and assumptions used in this computation. But one must be aware they are unwilling to accept the conclusion that those who pass themselves off as a nation's conscience, and who certainly are among the affluent, were not willing to endanger themselves to further their beliefs. Character Development in the Ruling Class Harvard Book: A Series of Historical Biographical and Historic Sketches, published in 1875 by two grateful members of the class of 1874, provided keen insight into the period.40 A brief biographical sketch was given of Charles William Eliot, whom many have regarded as the greatest and most influential of all Harvard presidents. They noted his birth in Boston in 1834 and his graduation from Harvard in 1853. After graduation Eliot taught at Harvard and in 1861 was placed in the chemistry department. In 1863 Eliot, after teaching and at age 29, went to Europe for further study. He not only studied chemistry, but acquainted himself with the organization of public instruction. No mention of his lack of service in the greatest trial the American people had ever seen was given though he was 27 years of age when it started and 31 when it ended. Writing in 1930, a fawning biographer noted Eliot was offered a commission in the cavalry in 1863 after two years of war he had turned down due to family responsibilities and substandard eyesight. He was sure Eliot found the decision "difficult and distasteful." This was after Eliot had written of his shame at seeing Union forces, including men of Massachusetts, run after defeat at the first battle of Bull Run. Afterwards Eliot in high heat wrote of the need for a great republic to fight for ten years if necessary, to dig up the root of evil in defense and honor.41 (Ambrose Bierce, who fought bravely in the Civil War and came to respect mightily his Confederate adversaries, noted that Hell hath no fury like a noncombatant.) This biographer assured the reader that Eliot when in Europe and when war was raging, had written home for advice for what he could do for the Union cause if he went home. He wasted hours waiting around Monroe's Bank in Paris waiting for bulletins at anxious moments. If he were to be drafted, Eliot informed his mother he would return to America immediately and not exercise his privilege in hiring a substitute.42 This pious man shortly thereafter became President of Harvard in 1869. In 1996, a Professor of English at Amherst published Manhood at Harvard: William James and Others, which traced the development of manliness at Harvard under Eliot. With absolute absence of irony the author cited Eliot's inaugural speech where he informed the assembled that the aristocracy "in war rides first into the murderous thickets."43 Eliot would serve 40 years as president and role model for aspiring gentlemen. His character and fortitude would be copied by two generations of the American moneyed classes. Even in 1924, during his ninetieth birthday celebration at Harvard, Eliot informed his audience in his youth he was noted for having zest for combat. In refreshed memory he cited his inaugural speech some 55 years previous. His manliness was nurtured on the playground. He wanted the gates to the playground to memorialize sons of Harvard who died for their country. Not to exclude those deprived of opportunity to demonstrate their manliness, he emphasized the duty of all Harvard men to serve their country in peace as well as war.44 He affirmed he had seen the same spirit in men of Harvard when war broke out against Germany in 1917 as when the Civil War came about.45 Harvard did not forget those who fought valiantly by erecting a Memorial Hall for the fallen. On Commemoration Day July 21, 1865, the departed were solemnly remembered with the inclusion of this heartfelt poem of the day: In every nobler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration; They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white shields of Expectation. One of the few great benefits the dead of Harvard ever received was not having to listen to this poem, though survivors who fought and lived did listen and suffered once more. However, Morison was so impressed with it he cited it in his history of Harvard's illustrious 300 years. The great exception among all the Harvard graduates has been Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great jurist, who if for nothing else is remembered so fondly because they must produce one name to prove the university was not totally bereft of war heroes. Holmes left Harvard in 1861 at the age of 20 and for three years was in the thick of the battles of the Civil War. Holmes was thrice wounded, once very seriously, and when on the Supreme Court, would take his clerks to Arlington Cemetery to show them the graves and was heard to remark that World War I was not nearly as severe as "our war." In October 1911, Holmes46 wrote a letter to Alice Stopford Green thanking her for a letter that warmed his heart, and he magnanimously blessed her flattering Irish tongue. Then he halfheartedly lamented the death of Harlan, the senior Justice, as one who had some of the faults of the savage and had outlived his usefulness. Then Holmes informed Miss Alice of the coming anniversary of his first battle and wound at Ball's Bluff some 50 years previously. Then Justice Holmes pontificated on death, a topic not generally well received by Americans. Almost 20 years later when close to 90 Justice Holmes mentioned the anniversary of the battles of Antietam, Ball's Bluff, and Fredericksburg to his secretary, Alger Hiss.47 Mr. Hiss, unlike Miss Alice, did not bring any understanding or empathy to the old man. There was no mention of visiting cemeteries. The Justice had wasted his time. Holmes, if remembered today, is known for his comments about limiting free speech so that "fire" cannot be shouted in a crowded theater and his oratory on Memorial Days. The former has brought knowing nods from lawyers and others who are concerned with having limits on human freedoms. The latter has brought derisive contempt from the critics of present day America. The one speech especially condemned has been the address on Memorial Day of 1895 at a meeting called by the graduating class of Harvard and entitled "The Soldier's Faith."48 This speech introduced the phrase "rootless cosmopolitanism" into the American language and wondered if the growing hatred by the poor for the rich was not predicated on the belief that money was the main thing. The rich had foisted this belief on the poor. Holmes talked of his childhood when he met some soldiers who had fought in the Revolutionary War and how old they were. Only later did Holmes realize that war was the business of young men and noted war when you were at it was horrible and dull. Only with the passage of time was it recognized that "its message was divine." Dangerous sports, such as polo, with an occasional broken neck were the breeding grounds of a race fit for headship and command. The student at Heidelberg University in Germany with a sword slashed face inspired sincere respect in Holmes who felt we did not save our traditions in this country. Once chronicler of the WASP ruling class, Joseph Alsop, traced the decline of the WASP ascendancy to both the corruptingly vast amounts of money that could be made in the United States after the Civil War and to the often stupid attempts by the moneyed class to ape the European, or at a minimum the English culture.49 On some reflection the Alsop insight lost some luster as his fellow columnist brother Stewart wrote that not one of their mother's nor their father's ancestors had taken any part whatever in any war. In fact Stewart had confessed that Joseph III had paid a substitute during the Civil War and Joseph I had done exactly the same thing during the Revolutionary War. This absence had been explained by the noted newspaper columnist as not being due to cowardice, but to their hatred of being placed in a subordinate and dependent position. Stewart further explained that nothing was more dependent and subordinate than an army recruit.50 There was no mention if these illustrious forbearers should have started at the top as a Field Marshal or some similar position worthy of their stature. This garbage would have a hard time being explained to Englishmen who knew the responsibility of an aristocracy was to act courageously in time of danger to the state and to accept orders from their superiors. Eminent Civil War historian, Shelby Foote, writing with restrained anguish from a Southern perspective about the effects of war on the North, noted that fifteen institutions of higher learning were founded during that conflict.51 Among these institutions were Cornell in New York State for aspiring farmers; Vassar for young ladies with cultural pretensions; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for training scientists (One cannot fail to note the claim by William Butler Yeats that "Science is the opiate of the suburbs." Yeats' disdain of science elicited from the English poet, W.H. Auden the critique that Yeats utterly failed to relate his aesthetic Weltanschauung with science.52 Rather than contest Germany during World War II Mr. Auden escaped the obligations to his home country by running away with his boy friend to the United States where his world view was more appreciated.); and Swarthmore College for young Quakers who needed respite not from the burdens of war, but from hearing others complain about the burdens of war, and who have insured that the college remains an oasis of pious sanctimony and a training ground for the politically noble. Life on campuses was not interrupted by the noise of battle. The Harvard-Yale boat race stopped in 1861 was resumed three years later amidst the bloodiest year of the war. Not a member of either crew volunteered for service in the navy or in the army. Mr. Foote took care to include President Lincoln in his group of those who sought to help unfortunates escape the allure and danger of battle. After graduating at the age of 22 from Harvard in 1864, young Robert Todd Lincoln was fortunate to have a mother so concerned for his life that she insisted he be hidden away in Harvard Law School. Young Robert professed to be concerned about those who were drafted and died in battle, and he wanted to be in uniform. In January 1865, President Lincoln wrote General Grant about finding a suitable slot for his son. Not surprisingly one opening was found on Grant's staff. Young Robert served from February of 1865 until war's end in early April of that year with no injury. Then and only then did Robert reenter Harvard Law School. No wonder why so many of the old southern diehards detested Lincoln, but there was also no question why so many of the northern rich admired him.53 In his old age another of Robert Todd Lincoln's characteristics manifested itself. He hated blacks. Adam Clayton Powell, long time congressman from Harlem, remembered him using his cane to crack the knuckles of blacks who opened his car door. Powell, who could pass for white, took great pleasure in fooling the son of the Great Emancipator and pocketing his tip.54 Mr. Foote also remembered the import chattel trade where immigrants were induced to come to America and fight on the northern side. Northern entrepreneurs of the day formed companies for the express purpose of trafficking in human bodies. The numbers must have been significant as the Richmond Examiner declared the Union army to be filled by the "riff-raff of Germany and Ireland." This importation of human flesh did not carry the same stigma as slavery for the high toned Yankee elite, but one is entitled to wonder about the character of those who used these services. One of the great exculpators of the northern interpretation of the war has been Professor James McPherson, who served as a principal consultant to the highly acclaimed public television series on the Civil War. Professor McPherson claimed that 26% of the white soldiers in the Union army were born overseas while the foreign born constituted 31% of the draft age population. One possible explanation to the under representation of immigrants in military service given by McPherson was the exemption from conscription given to aliens who had not filed for citizenship. Then McPherson said that two of the principal ethnic groups - German and British Protestants - enlisted in proportion to their representation in the general population, but that German and Irish Catholics did not. McPherson asserted he had data for these pronouncements, but did not bother to cite it. Nor has McPherson responded to letters requesting his sources. (When a black professor was assigned by the magazine Black Scholar to critique The Bell Curve, which maintained subnormal performance by blacks on intelligence tests, Professor McPherson advised the black professor against reading the book. Reportedly Professor McPherson of Princeton told the black that reading the book was exactly what "those white boys" wanted him to do. If he did so, the black would have to contend with their ideas that would distract the black from contradicting a lot of nonsense.55 How McPherson could know the book was nonsense without reading it has defied logic. But the most pertinent point was the classic illustration of the closed mind of the establishment academician, McPherson, when confronted with challenges to his deeply held beliefs.) Jews in the Civil War One of the curious things about the McPhersons of this country has been what they omit and fail to cite either from plain ignorance or deliberate oversight. The puritan strain in America is represented in McPherson, who with a sinecure at Princeton and once a leadership position in the Presbyterian church, carefully made judgments which affirmed the social and cultural superiority of his class. That Roman Catholics were fair game has long been accepted, and that Jews were not has been a covenant of a more recent age. However, the Encyclopedia Judaica, published in Jerusalem, gave a Jewish population of the United States in 1860 of about 150,000. A little further in their exposition on the glory of the accomplishments of Jews in the United States gave a total of 500 Jews who fell during the Civil War. These numbers were proudly recounted by The Jewish Veteran, the official newsletter of the Jewish War Veterans.56 A little computation arrived at the ratio of one Jew in every 300 dying during that war. This worked out to little more than three deaths per thousand Jews. This contribution to the Civil War death toll was of the order of one sixth or one seventh of the rest of the population after making allowances that restrictions were placed on service by blacks. One could feel supremely confident that Jews came nowhere close to matching the contribution of the immigrant Irish on a proportional basis. The question must be why this fact has not been widely known and discussed. The supposition that the esteemed Presbyterian elder James McPherson was unaware of it is simply ludicrous, but far more interesting has been why he would not comment on it. Until the 1930s in the United States the progressive element was almost exclusively in the hands of radical non-conformists and high-minded Christians who attested to the probity of all those who wished to be admitted to their circle. These people asserted their cultural and moral superiority by professing pacifism as the answer to everything and at all times. In 1941 just prior to World War II Father Danial Ryan had written of the contribution of American Catholics to the American war dead in World War I. Father Ryan after giving accounting for individual cemeteries in Europe consolidated his figures as 81,067 American dead in Europe through combat or disease and of that figure some 22,552 were of Roman Catholic faith.57 Thusly, Roman Catholics in America had accounted for over 28% of the American war dead when they were less than 17% of the American population.58 This accounting was necessary to counter the blatant claims of the ignorant in the Ku Klux Klan and the much more subtle and much more sinister claims of the ancestors of Professor McPherson that Catholics were not real Americans. True to form Roman Catholics have forgotten this or have through exposure to modern American mores become ashamed of having scrutinized the dead in the first place. The Irish hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has lacked cultural surety and moral courage when confronting those they regard as their superiors. Their bishops tug the forelock and content themselves with their sheep. Given the magnitude of the Nazi onslaught in Europe, American Jews were able to claim much of this position of innocence and righteousness by virtue of their being the most prominent victims of the Nazis. By some ill-defined and little understood process this has entitled Jews to determine what and who are worth defending. One might suspect an uneasy truce existing between the old order represented by McPherson and the newer order represented by Jews so prevalent in the media where the most basic claims by both sides to innocence and standing are not challenged. Blacks in the Civil War A maliciously distorted view of participation by blacks in America's wars has long existed. Why this interpretation has existed for such a long time can be explained only by moral cowardice of whites and dishonesty by both blacks and whites. As with so many issues involving race in the United States no public discussion has been possible unless euphemisms are used, and both sides accept forbidden topics. When the issue becomes the Civil War, obvious stupid mistakes, if not outright misrepresentations about black participation in this war, have become almost criminally irresponsible. Ebony Handbook, published in 1973, gives the below information for black participation:59 Total Black Black Percentage Union Army 2,213,363 278,312 12 Battle Deaths 140,414 36,847 14 The historian from Princeton, Professor James McPherson, gave his and other generally accepted estimates of the Union dead, which would include both battlefield and non-combat related deaths at about 360,000.60 His estimate of blacks serving in Union forces was about 179,000 black soldiers and perhaps as many as 20,000 black sailors.61 What caused the greater dispute was the accounting of the dead. The number of war deaths for Union troops as given by Ebony approximated the accepted number, but the number of deaths under battlefield conditions for the blacks was totally out of line. How Ebony computed some 36,000 black deaths allegedly occurring on the battlefield out of 140,000 total battlefield deaths to be 14% of the total has illustrated the sloppy, irresponsible statistics tolerated when originated by blacks. Most estimates for battlefield deaths for blacks hovered at about 3000, which would make the estimated total less than ten percent of Ebony's inflated guess. Professor McPherson wrote of six percent of white Union troops being killed in action while only 1.5 percent of black Union troops were killed under combat conditions. Fully 19% of black troops died from disease, which was a rate of almost twice that of white soldiers. Much of this large discrepancy has to be attributed to poor sanitation practices among blacks who did not receive the medical care that whites did. The historian of black issues, Herbert Aptheker, gave as his estimate of the black civil war dead as 2870 killed or mortally wounded while 29,756 died of disease.62 Mr. Aptheker, who had been a lifelong communist, dedicated one of his works to his charming daughter, Bettina, who was arrested for attempting to blow people up with bombs, and to Angela Davis, who still runs as a Communist candidate.63 In addition Mr. Aptheker was optimistic enough to dedicate the volume to the future that their solidarity symbolized. Even in February 1991, Ebony asserted that Union records show 37,638 black casualties, which they maintained was 21% of Union casualties.64 Has nobody challenged the blatant distortions, if not lies by the black cultural elite? The effort by the white war dead has been denigrated, and the black contribution has been inflated. This blatant distortion of the truth has persisted for at least fifty years, and an inspired, yet educated, guess would be the misrepresentation has been believed in the black culture for over one hundred years. Blacks had a population of almost 900,000 men in the 15 to 40 years of age in 1860. Their combat dead of 3000 in that selected group gave a death rate of little over 3.3 per 1000. Northern whites had somewhere around 110,000 die under combat conditions. With their pool of almost 4,350,000 to draw on, northern whites died at a rate of slightly more than 25 per 1000. Proportionately whites died at almost 8 times the rate blacks died on the battlefield. This upsetting fact is never discussed when the issue of reparations for blacks comes up. Professor McPherson of Princeton has represented the lineal descent of the abolitionist strain in America of the late twentieth century. The need to belittle much of the white race and conversely to inflate the black race has been evident in his writings. Quoting a Negro author on the riots in New York City on July 13, 1863 that the mob was composed mostly of the lowest and most degraded of the foreign population (mostly Irish), dragged from the filthiest cellars and dens of the city, Mr. McPherson made clear where his sympathies lay. Another Negro correspondent remarked on the Irish becoming so brutish that it was unsafe for families to live near them. In the village of Flushing the Roman Catholic priest was visited by a delegation of blacks who told him they were peaceable men, but if black houses were burned, two Irish houses would burn for every one of theirs. For every colored man killed two Irish would die. These blacks were not mobbed. Where blacks were armed for self-defense, they were not bothered. A black physician, Dr. J.W.C. Pennington, noted the opposition to the draft came from that class of men of foreign birth who declared their intention to become citizens, but had not done so. They had been notified they should leave the country within sixty days or submit to the draft. They did not wish to leave the country, and they did not wish to fight. In a trenchant observation in 1864 Dr. Pennington remarked, "Dishonest politicians aim to make these men believe that the war has been undertaken to abolish slavery; and so far as they believe so, their feelings are against colored people."65 If Dr. Pennington were to come to life in the America of the first decade of the twenty-first century, he would soon discover that dishonest politicians and academics have long maintained the Civil War was fought over slavery. Americans in the 20th Century Popular American imagination has had the United States winning both wars of the 20th century against the Germans. In reality we were of distinct secondary importance, suffered little and benefited greatly, as Chou En Lai told James Reston. 66 As William Faulkner noted, the past has not gone, but remains. American culture has been shaped by the three groups that escaped the travails and burdens of the Civil War. During the war in Vietnam the campuses at Harvard and Yale once again provided sanctuary for the affluent. ROTC had been banned from their refuge to provide one more reason why they need not serve. Even in World War II, using the 1940 census figures of almost 5 million Jews67 in an American population of 131 million that included 13 million blacks, Jews cowered and fled. American combat deaths totaled 292,000 with only 700 of them being black, as blacks were not allowed to fight commensurate with their numbers. Jews had 8000 combat deaths68 while their fellow Americans, not black or Jewish, had over 280,000. Jews died at a rate of 1.6 per 1000 Jews while white gentiles died at a rate of more than 2.4 per 1000. During that war Jews had 2500 non-combat deaths and died at an overall rate of 2.1 per 1000. White gentiles died at a rate more than 3.4 per 1000. In Germany of World War I Jews numbered about 600,000 and had 12,000 deaths. The 57 million Germans had over 1,800,000 deaths. Jews died for the Kaiser at the rate of 20 per 1000 while other Germans died at a rate more than 50% higher, more than 31 per 1000. To point out the obvious, the Jews of Germany died for the Kaiser at almost 10 times the rate their American kin would do fighting the Germany of Adolf Hitler, by reputation the most evil country ever to exist. If Jews of America would not fight in World War II, the question must be asked: When would they fight? The answer must be never. So much for the claptrap that men will dutifully fight and die if the cause is sufficiently noble. For the Vietnam War the estimated population of the United States in 1967 was slightly over 200 million with Jews being 5.87 million of that total, or almost 3% of the general population. Given the total of American dead for the war was slightly above 58,000, the "fair" share contribution would be about 1700 of those dead coming from Jews. One privately published analysis of Vietnam War dead used data in the Southeast Asia Combat Area Casualties File in the National Archives and concluded after a computer count that 269 Jews died in that conflict.69 Later this information was discreetly published on the internet and not publicized.70 Other Americans died at a rate more than six times as much as Jews. In 1990 prior to the Gulf War, Abe Rosenthal, once editor of the New York Times, blasted Republican presidential aspirant, Pat Buchanan for stating the war would be fought by people named McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown. Mr. Rosenthal, acting as censor, believed this statement offensive to Jews. Even in 1996 Mr. Rosenthal demanded that Buchanan retract his assertion.71 Unwelcomed truth has never interested Mr. Rosenthal and friends. At least one letter detailing their deceit was not published. For the war in Vietnam, 11 men named McAllister died; 81 men named Murphy; 84 men named Gonzales; and 380 men named Brown.72 Twice as many men named by Buchanan died than Jews. To the New York Times these men and their families are much more remote and much less important than a Brooklyn born settler on the West Bank of the Jordan River. For the war against Iraq, the Jewish Welfare Board estimated out of about 520,000 American troops in the Gulf only 500 were Jews.73 If Jews had been there in proportion to their numbers, almost 13,000, some 25 times the number present, would have been in uniform. Mr. Maury Maverick found that not one of the 386 Americans who died was a Jew.74 Later in the pages of the New York Times there was an attempt to revise the total of Jews present in the war zone upward as had been done in previous wars to bolster the image of Jews.75 Blacks in Vietnam If the U.S. is to regain voices of intellectual honesty and courage, much of it will have to come from an emerging class of black intellectuals and professionals. An ideal place for black intellectuals to start would be to challenge the lies so believed by the black lower class and the white liberal media who have felt it their duty to tell many of these lies. One such lie has been the belief among blacks that blacks died in the Vietnam War in numbers greater than their share of the population. This vicious calumny so disturbed Richard Nixon he had tried to confront and refute this lie, but to no avail.76 In 1968, the year in which the U.S. took the most casualties in Vietnam, there were 14,686 murders in America. For whites some 6,806 died with 5,106 being male. For blacks 7,880 died with black males being 6,417 of the victims.77 Blacks, despite being outnumbered by whites almost eight to one, managed to murder and die more than whites. In Vietnam for that fateful year about 15,000 men died with about 12% being black. For blacks this would give about 1800 dead in Vietnam, less than one-fourth the number of blacks murdered in America. Black crime was much the greater killer of blacks than the war in Vietnam. For whites the war in Vietnam took almost twice as many lives than murder did. The American media has never bothered to make clear the misconception by blacks that they suffered out of proportion in that war and that they were deliberately targeted by a white power structure to die. This malicious lie has been fostered by a white liberal power structure in the media that ducked that war and has felt their support for what they consider necessary lies, on the part of blacks is justified by past injustices. The effect of that lie on the white lower class has never entered their consciousness. A great intrusion into the liberal mindset of the United States took place when Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in June 1978, delivered the commencement address at Harvard. After reminding the assembled that the motto of Harvard was "Veritas", the great Russian told them that "truth is seldom sweet; it is almost invariably bitter." Then he cautioned them that he came as a friend to deliver bitter truths. For a crowd that long recited the cant that truth was beauty and beauty was truth this was a brutal assault on their cherished beliefs. After reminding the Harvard audience and many others that in the 20th century Western democracy had not won any great war by itself, Solzhenitsyn cautioned against the West aligning itself with China. In two World Wars the West had taken care to shield itself with the armies of Russia when they should have been capable of winning the wars by themselves. Those advocating an alliance with China and using it as a shield should remember that at a later date China armed with American weapons could turn on America, which could fall victim to a Cambodian-style genocide. Yet these warnings and no weapons would help the West unless they recovered their willpower and confidence. To defend oneself, one must be ready to die, and there was very little such readiness in a society raised on a cult of material well-being. In closing he chose to instruct the faithless that humanism, which had lost its Christian heritage, could not expect to prevail.78 His poignant remarks have largely been forgotten because he excluded Israel from the West. Their theocratic government disqualified them. Significantly Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, placed his country in Asia, but thought Americans must know that the only two democracies in Asia were Israel and Japan. Ben-Gurion placated many critics who long felt Israelis had little in common with the West. 79 Yet Solzhenitsyn57;s words bear more importance today than then. Many believe the fall of the Soviet Union was caused by the rise of China in the decade before the fall. The role of the U.S. and Ronald Reagan has been exaggerated. Despite what we choose to believe, China has assumed the role of the nascent expanding power while the United States has become the declining aging power. The seat of world power seems to be shifting once again to Asia where it has resided for much of human history. Globalization with its economic rigidity has moved the wealth-generating industries to China while denuding the United States. The deliberate lowering of academic standards has hastened the acceptance of most Americans to their lot in life. The economic elite cares little in terms of which political party rules, but order in America and accretion of wealth matters mightily. Under Bill Clinton the American rush to leadership in the Third World accelerated, and under George W. Bush there appears to be little shift in plans from this embarrassing foolhardiness. After World War I, Oswald Spengler observed that once a nation thinks exclusively in economic terms it loses its ability to think politically. He said it was true of Carthage in Roman times and even more so of Woodrow Wilson's America.80 The America of today surpasses Wilson's America in tunnel vision. The only foreign endeavor considered important by the entertainment Mafia and media elite revolves around stabilizing conflict in the Middle East. Russia, Germany, China and Japan have been relegated to secondary considerations. A truly wise American, George Kennan, nearing 100 years of age, has stated he did not regard the United States civilization of the post-World War II era as a successful civilization. Mr. Kennan did not think the political system of present day America adequate to the age to which we are moving. Mr. Kennan described why this country is destined to succumb to failures that cannot be other than tragic and enormous.81 Mr. Kennan has not been alone in his pessimism. Those who agree cannot speak or write in the mainstream media. We are to suffer our fate in silence and to live and to die like the flies of summer. Postscript On April 7, 2002 the Japan Times carried the comments by Liberal Party leader Ichiro Ozawa that Japan could easily become a nuclear power. He stated Japan had enough plutonium to make 3 to 4 thousand nuclear weapons. 60;If that should happen, we wouldn57;t lose (to China) in terms of military strength. What would (China) do then?61; Not one word has appeared in the American press that has ceased to cover the American military in Afghanistan and concentrated its resources on Israel. One must ask what the Chinese think. Not one word has appeared in the American press. If a German party leader had made a similar remark to the Russians, the New York Times would push Israel off the front page. [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020407a1.htm] In the May 5, 2002 issue of the Japan Times, Donald Richie reviewed Tokyo Central by Edward Seidensticker. Richie recognized Seidensticker as a very moral man who made stern judgments. One was 60;that the emperor was neither forced to abdicate nor taken to court as a war criminal was owing General MacArthur57;s vanity. He loved having an emperor under him61; Both Richie and Seidensticker are pre-eminent authorities on Japanese culture, history and politics. Both recognize that Hirohito was a great war criminal by any definition. His Japan killed more people and occupied more territory than Hitler57;s Germany. Yet he was never held to standards of justice that were applied to the Germans. The Chinese will never forget this. [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fb20020505dr.htm] Richard Earley is the author of War, Money and American Memory: Myths of Virtue, Valor and Patriotism, Diane Publishing. Additional information about this book is available at: http://www.dianepublishingcentral.com/Product....3064391 Diane Publishing, Box 1428, Collingdale, Pa 19023, TEL 1-800-782-3833. End Notes 1. J.N. Westwood, Russia Against Japan 1904-05: A New Look at the Russo-Japanese War, State University of New York, 1988, p. 35. 2. NYT, Feb 13, 1904, p. 8 (editorial page). 3. Congressional Record, p3334, April 11, 1947, (inserted by Senator Thomas of Utah and extracted from Zabriskie's American-Russian Rivalry in the Far East, 1895-1914). 4. NYT, May 7, 1995, pE3. 5. NYT, May 21, 1995, p4. 6. Michael Blankfort, The Big Yankee: The Life of Carlson of the Raiders, Little, Brown 1947, pp. 237-41. 7. Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings Joint Committee, 79th Congress part 11, April 9, 1946, pp. 5432-3, USGPO, 1946. 8. Carroll V. Glines, The Doolittle Raid, Orion Books, 1988, pp. 150-1. 9. Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, Harper & Row, 1969, p. 120. 10. New York Times: Report From Red China, Quadrangle Books, 1971, pp. 92-4, & 346. 11. T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture, Harcourt, Brace, 1968, p. 118. 12. American Heritage Magazine, November 1989, p. 8. 13. August Myer, A History of the Great American Fortunes, 1908, Random House [Modern Library edition], 1957. 14. Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990, p. 22. 15. __, Columbia University: A History 1754-1904, MacMillan, 1904, p. 138. 16. Pound, Ezra Pound - Selected Prose 1909-65, New Directions, 1972, p.171. 17. David E. Koskoff, The Mellons - The Chronicle of America's Richest Family, Thomas T. Crowell, 1978, pp. 25-9. 18. Isabel Ross, An American Family - The Tafts: 1678-1964, World Publishing Co, 1964, pp.12, 38, 40. 19. The New England Magazine, March 1891, pp. 3-23. 20. New England Magazine, February 1890, pp. 675-81. 21. James McPherson, Drawn by the Sword, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 99. 22. E.B. Long, The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac 1861-1865, Doubleday, 1971, pp. 704-11. 23. Walter Millis, Arms and Men: A Study of American Military History, Putnam, 1956, pp. 103-5. 24. - Roll of Students of Harvard College Who Have Served in the Army or Navy During the War of Rebellion, Commemoration Day July 21, 1865, John Wilson & Son, 116 Water Street, Boston, 1865. -Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. 1 & 2, table of contents and appendix to vol. 2, Sever & Francis, 1866. - Francis H. Brown, Harvard University in the War of 1861-1865, Cupples, Upham & Co, 1886. 25. McPherson, opcit, p. 113. 26. New England Magazine, March 1891, pp. 6-7. 27. Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard: 1636-1936, Harvard Press, 1937, pp. 302-4. 28. Ellsworth Eliot, Yale in the Civil War, Yale Univ Press, 1932, pp. 72-82. 29. Eliot, ibid, p. 24 (Table II). 30. Eliot, ibid, p. 8 (Table I). 31. Eliot, ibid, pp5-16. 32. Eliot, ibid, p. 23. 33. Eliot, ibid, p. 29. 34. Valedictory: Poem and Oration, Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1865, p. 22, Senior Class in Yale College on Presentation Day June 21, 1865. 35. ibid, p. 20. 36. ibid, p. 39. 37. Ellsworth Eliot, opcit, p. 23 & p. 71. 38. James McPherson, Drawn by the Sword, Oxford Univ Press, 1996, p. 92. 39. Ellsworth Elliot, opcit, p. 62. 40. Vaille and Clark, Harvard Book, Cambridge, Welch, Bigelow, Univ Press, 1875, pp. 61-70, 52, (biog of Eliot). 41. Henry James, Charles William Eliot, Vol. 1, Houghton, Mifflin, 1930, pp. 88-93. 42. James, ibid, p. 139. 43. Kim Townsend, Manhood at Harvard: William James and Others, W. W. Norton, 1996, p. 96. 44. The Ninetieth Birthday Celebration of Charles William Eliot: Proceeding, Harvard Press, 1925, pp. 24-7. 45. ibid, p. 29. 46. Richard E. Posner, The Essential Holmes, Univ of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 3. 47. Alger Hiss, Recollections of a Life, Seaver, 1988, p. 33. 48. Julius J. Marke, The Holmes Reader, Oceana, 1964, pp. 101, in speech 60;The Soldiers57; Faith61; delivered on Memorial Day 1895 to Graduating Class at Harvard. 49. Joseph Alsop, I've Seen the Best of It, Norton, 1992, p. 33. 50. Stewart Alsop, Stay of Execution: A Sort of Memoir, Lippincott, 1973, p. 55. 51. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, Random House, 1963, p. 151. 52. Nation, Oct 12, 1940, p. 333. 53. NYT, Aug 22, 1988, p. B6. (Foote's Red River to Appomattox, the third volume in his civil war trilogy is quoted in approving manner.) 54. Charles V. Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell Jr, Athenum, 1991, p. 50. 55. The Black Scholar, Vol 25, No. 1, p. 32, (undated, but published in 1995) article by Gerald Early. 56. The Jewish Veteran, Winter 1992, p. 16. 57. Danial J. Ryan, American Catholic World War I Records, Catholic Univ. Press, 1941, pp. 88-9. 58. Ryan, ibid, p. 13. 59. Ebony Handbook, ibid, p. 200. 60. James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War & Reconstruction, Knopf, 1982, p. 488. 61. McPherson, ibid, p. 355. 62. The Journal of Negro History, United Publishing, 1969, pp. 12-3, (article by Herbert Aptheker). 63. A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States (1910-1932): From Emergence of the NAACP to the Beginning of the New Deal, Dedication Page, Citadel Press, 1973, (ed. Herbert Aptheker). 64. Ebony Magazine, p. 103, Feb 1991. 65. James McPherson, The Negro's Civil War, Pantheon, 1965, pp. 70-5. 66. New York Times: Report From Red China, Quadrangle Books, 1971, pp. 92-4 & 346. 67. Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 15, p. 892. 68. Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 15, Kefer Press, 1972, p.1634. 69. William F. Abbott, The Names on the Wall: A Closer Look - A Sociological Analysis and Commentary, June 1991 (Privately published by Mr. Abbott of 121 Imperial Avenue, Westport, Connecticut, 06880). 70. AOL. warlibrary. 71. NYT, Feb 9, 1996 p. A29. 72. Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Directory, 1984. 73. NYT, Mar 18, 1991, p. B6. 74. Washington Monthly, December 1991, p. 10. (Also author communication with Maury Maverick.) 75. NYT, May 18, 1991, p. 9. 76. Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams, Arbor House, 1985, p.128. 77. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1976, (US Bureau of Census, 1976). 78. Vital Speeches of the Day, Sep 1, 1978, pp. 678-84, delivered June 8, 1978 at Harvard's Commencement. 79. C.L. Sulzburger, An Age of Mediocrity: Memoirs and Diaries: 1963-1973, MacMillan, 1973, pp. 448-53. 80. Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West, Vol II, Knopf, 1939, p. 475. 81. William Pfaff, Barbarian Sentiments, Hill & Wang, 1989, p. 182.
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#1. To: CWRWinger (#0)
...
She said, hey cowboy, where's your horse I said, I lost everything but this saddle in my second divorce...
Class is now in session.
She said, hey cowboy, where's your horse I said, I lost everything but this saddle in my second divorce...
No, they believe that "...the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor was a treachery unequalled in the annals of"...America. No time to read all of this, co-op...yer welcome to it...MUD
Question Conventional Wisdom!!
It was completely legal, you smallminded baboon.
She said, hey cowboy, where's your horse I said, I lost everything but this saddle in my second divorce...
The Japs paid fer it and would be ill-advised to try it again...legal, my arse, wussyboy...MUD
Question Conventional Wisdom!!
You're the coward, crying about how the japs hit us when our backs were turned.
She said, hey cowboy, where's your horse I said, I lost everything but this saddle in my second divorce...
Who's crying? It happened, then American troops whupped their arses...MUD
Question Conventional Wisdom!!
You were. There was nothing remotely "treacherous" about Pearl Harbor. It was simply a surprise attack, common in military history.
She said, hey cowboy, where's your horse I said, I lost everything but this saddle in my second divorce...
And I simply pointed out that the Japanese paid dearly fer their treachery...MUD
Question Conventional Wisdom!!
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